[234] Hieronymus Fracastorius, physician and poet, and much commended for his elegance as a Latin Writer, was born in Verona in 1483, and died in that neighborhood, of an apoplexy, in 1553, at the age of seventy-one. He was a man of blameless life and engaging manners, which so endeared him to his friends and countrymen, that they erected a statue to his memory six years after his death. His "Syphilis," the book here alluded to, was printed with his other works in two volumes, at Padua, in 1735. There is a separate edition of his poetical works, printed at the same place in 1718. Fracastorius was born, it is said, with his lips so grown together that it was necessary to call in the assistance of a surgeon to separate them.
[235] Gaspar Taliacotius (1546-1599) was a professor of physic and surgery at Bologna. In his "De Curtorum Chirurgia per Insitionem" he taught the art of grafting noses, lips, and ears, with the proper instruments and bandages. The only manner which he used and recommends for the reparation of maimed noses, &c., is skin.
[236] A quack doctor whose advertisements may be found in the newspapers of the day.
[237] Ovid, "Amor. El." ix. 1.
"Namque edepol si adbites proprius, os denasabit tibi
Mordicus."
—"Captivi," act iii. sc. 4, II. 72-73.